Design and implementation of an online SMS examination timetable alert system
CHAPTER ONE
INTRODUCTION
1.1 Background of the Study
One of the main functions of any institution of higher learning is assessment of students’ in their understanding of concepts and skills acquired during their training period in the institution. The outcome of such assessments is realized via a series of activities that constitute the overall examination process. This process entails setting of examinations by the relevant lecturers, administration of such examinations by the appropriate course coordinators and subsequently processing and realizing of students results emanating from such a process. The entire assessment process can at times be such an enormous task that can take long periods of time to complete, and is prone to numerous errors, in addition to significant costs that may be involved. With the current advancement in technology, this process can be streamlined to a very large extent. (Eley, 2016).
In every organized system which is dependent on accurate time management, there is also a need to have a system which can on its own serve the purpose of automatically sending alert text messages. Time management plays important role in the success of any venture like a university environment where limited spaces (lecture halls), time and people have to be managed for effective lecture delivery and examination management. It is important to remind or inform lecturers and students of examination schedule so as to make them informed about their exams. People can easily be reached through their handheld devices such as mobile phone irrespective of their location (Deb, 2002). Hence, there is the need to develop a examination system that will combine available resources and reach people via short message service (SMS) using GSM module.
The basis of this project is to look into ways and means in which examination information system can be used to significantly reduce the various drawbacks brought about by the current system of operation.
Advancement in ICT technologies, such as the decision support systems, distributed systems, mobile computing, and so on, have made enormous quantity of data and information processing within the Internet and other large-scale networks possible. This has presented numerous opportunities for the institution to carry out its day-to-day operations in an efficient manner that will ensure that. it realizes its objectives much more effectively. The more information becomes available electronically the more the user is given greater diversity > ‘ * and choice. This however also means that the user must spend more time extracting and 1 sorting the relevant information from the increasing volumes of data. Institutions with affiliated campuses dispersed across wide geographical areas depend heavily on communication channels for information and data transfer. Availability and reliability of the communication network as well as up-to-date information is crucial for timely response and decision making. In the absence of this, the institution’s operations, as well as its image can be seriously dented leading to significant loses. This problem can be compounded by the fact that the final data recipients are human users. Over-reliance on human operators is costly and time dependent, hence quality results may not be guaranteed due to the many human factors involved. Significant improvements on communication hardware, software, protocols and media have led to improved connectivity that has greatly increased performance (Bufe, 2011).1.3 Objective Of Study
The world is changing into a global village and the quest for knowledge and information is increasing. The computing is fast dominating all the aspects of life and many academic institution activities. There is a need for an easy way for planning and scheduling the school examination time table. To achieve this purpose, the following objectives must be put into consideration:
Reducing clashes in time and venues for exams.
To develop a system that will capture the actual sizes of the class and allocate venues accordingly.
Develop a system that will create room for carryover to write their exams without clashes.
Developing a system that will create room easy amendment where there are errors.
Developing a systems that can automate SMS to student to remember then there exam date.
1.4 Significance Of Study
This research work is greatly hoped to eliminate the manual way of scheduling examination time table in the faculty of science, national Open University. It will more also eliminate stress in planning of the time table. It will also avail the students to go for their worship at Sundays that is no more writing exams on Sundays. Students will now write exams comfortably with good venue and much time and more also eliminate examination clash.
1.5 Scope Of Study
This project work is meant to cover examination time table scheduling for faculty of science, national Open University Nigeria.
1.6 Limitation Of Study
No research work can be carried out without certain constraints either in form of finance or logistics.
This research is not an exemption and as such as money factors serves as constraints in the process of carrying out this research. Below are little of the constraints encountered.
TIME: Given the time required for the submission of this research work, the necessary attention was not given to the study coupled with the work load of any final year student.
FINANCE: Financial resources are not readily available to carry out an extensive and thorough research and the work is a tasking exercise, which requires a lot of financial commitment. Unfortunately, the money required to carry out this thorough work is not always available. As a matter of fact, finance was a constraint in this research especially with the harsh economic condition.
POWER SUPPLY:
There has been no power for this work because in the area we are living their transformer got damage has not been restored.
1.8 DEFINITION OF TERMS
Lay-men: A person who is not a member a particular profession.
End-user: A person that users a software developed by another person
Allocate: to distribute resource for a particular purpose.
SIAS: School of Industrial and Applied Science.
PHP LANGUAGE: A server side language used in web development.
PROLOG: A high level language programming language base on logical rather than mathematical relationships.
CONSTRAINT: something that limits freedom of action.
LINEAR PROGRAMMING: A method of finding maximum and minimum of a linear transformation using variables that is subject to constraints.